


My body is my enemy. A terrorist holding a dead man's switch.

by Polyhexian



Series: Okay but what if they were ace tho [7]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Ace Chromedome, Ace character, M/M, POV Second Person, Sexual content isn't very explicit but its ABOUT sexual content, Trauma, long-term sexual trauma, sexual self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: He needs you. He needs this from you, and you would do anything for him, even this.
Relationships: Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers)
Series: Okay but what if they were ace tho [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772830
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	My body is my enemy. A terrorist holding a dead man's switch.

**Author's Note:**

> BIG SUPERMASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING TO START WITH.... This is a fic thats big on themes of sexual trauma, consent, self loathing, trauma, ptsd, like, the fuckin works. be prepared if you go further.

"This feels wrong," Rewind whispers. His hands are on your chest plate and his face is so close to yours you can feel the warmth from his visor. "I feel this… this guilt, in me. Like I'm not supposed to be doing this."

You think about it. The selfish part of you wants to tell him he's got no reason to feel that way, that he should let go and move on. But you've been a monster long enough and you're trying your best to kill the person you used to be. You can't feed it. Not ever. Rewind is a good person, so if he feels guilty, there's a good reason. It's no wonder that you can't understand.

"I don't want you to do anything you don't want to," you tell him softly, "Or something you think is wrong. I won't hold it against you. I won't leave, if you don't want to." 

His visor flickers, optical sensors tracking yours behind the glass. You wonder what he's thinking. You wonder what he thinks of you. 

"I still love him, Domey," he murmurs, "I can't not. I don't think I ever could."

"I would never ask you not to," you assure him. It hurts, a little. You know what he means. I'll always love him _more,_ Domey. It's not his fault. It's all he has to give you, and he's offering it anyway. You won't complain when you deserve so much less. "I don't want to pressure you. I promise, Rewind- if you want to stop, right now, I won't leave. I still want to help you find him. We don't ever have to talk about it again. I care about you."

You think it will break you if he wants that, but you would rather break yourself than him. There's nothing in you anymore but darkness and he's seen it and kept you anyway, pollution beside his light. You're grateful for that. For everything.

His visor dims softly, forehead tilting forward to rest against your own. "I know. I know you would. That's why I know you love me. So I can't ask that of you, because you offered."

You don't know what that means. 

"What do you want, Rewind?"

"I want…" His hand touches your mouth plate, only barely, only just, and with only a moment more of hesitation, he slides his aside. You've never seen him without it before. He has lips that beg to be kissed and you think they will fit perfectly against your own. "I want to kiss you. Primus- I- I want to kiss you so much."

"Then you should kiss me," you tell him, selfishly, "If that's what you want." You swallow, and then you open your mouth plate. He doesn't say anything else, but he surges upward to grab your face in his tiny hands and press your lips together. 

You were right. They fit perfectly.

He's so tiny in your arms. You're certain if you move wrong, if you aren't careful you'll break him, and you have no idea why he trusts you not to. He knows who and what you are. He knows what you've done. And even yet, even still. His lips part your own and he sits up further in your lap, the tiny shuttle trembling hard enough you have to tighten your grip to keep him from falling. It will be hours yet until you reach the planet's surface. 

"I do," Rewind says earnestly, "I don't know if I should or if I shouldn't but- but I _do._ I love you." 

You're selfish. You're so fucking selfish. The monster in you isn't dead but lingering in the dark, licking its teeth and waiting for you to give up on pretending that you'll ever be good again. It won't have another meal just yet, but it bites down on your chest and sinks its teeth into your spark and you push forward against him, kissing him as deeply as you dare and hoping against hope that he can taste it on you, how much you love him, how much you admire him, how good and passionate and strong you think he is, how beautiful and intelligent and kind and how _much_ you want to spend the rest of your life beside him. He's perfect.

He pulls you back down on top of him by your shoulders without breaking your kiss, his knee pushing up against your interface panel. You ignore the discomfort pooling in your gut and push back, patting blindly for his own. He's clutching your neck with trembling hands, gasping into your mouth for air but too desperate to pull away and get it, pushing back into your touch with all the untempered neediness he's been holding back since you met him. His panel opens under your hand and he whimpers like you're the only thing tethering him to the world when you touch him. 

He needs you. He needs this from you, and you would do anything for him, even this.

* * *

"I love you," you remind him. You've told him a million times and you'll tell him a million times more and it will never be enough. Not in a hundred thousand life times.

"Ah-" he gasps, head rolled back, mouth open, rocking into your movements over him, visor long since shorted out, "I know."

You bury your face in his neck, pressing kisses to the metal because you don't think he can stop gasping enough to kiss you properly. He's beautiful like this, but he's always beautiful, even when he isn't sweat-streaked with condensation, vents flared and dumping hot air, fans running full and thighs trembling around your waist. As long as you focus on that, on him, on his face and his voice and happy little cries he makes when you move you can get through it. You can focus. You can do this.

It's only when he tries to do the work that the facade slips and he starts to worry. When it's you, when all he has to do is hang on and enjoy himself and you're the one that has to work and focus then you're in control. It works. When it's him, when he tries to sit in your lap and focus on you, he can always tell. You're a terrible actor. It puts a black pit in your gut that you can't just _give_ him this, one of the few things he wants from you. 

He sits over top of you and he focuses and tries to give you something you don't want and his visor dims and narrows in that curious little frown that's so cute, and you do your best to play along but he asks anyway, because he can always tell. "Is something wrong?"

"No," you tell him, "How could anything be wrong? You're right here."

He doesn't fall for the flattery. "Do you want to do something else? It's okay if you do."

You know what he means. He means it's okay if you want to do this a different way. He means it's okay to change positions or change focuses or locations. He doesn't mean it's okay if you want to stop and never do this again. You know that's not in the question because it doesn't make _sense._ You love him. This is what people who love each other do. This is what people do for _fun_ who don't even _like_ each other. It's _normal._

Why can't you just be _normal?_

* * *

Brainstorm doesn't like him.

You really aren't surprised. Brainstorm doesn't like anyone. He's a pompous twat most of the time and a paranoid maniac when he's not. He doesn't like anyone he thinks he's smarter than and he doesn't trust anyone he thinks is smarter than him. God knows why he likes _you._

Rewind likes him even less.

That _does_ surprise you, because it seems sometimes like Rewind likes just about everyone. He's not like you. People look at you and they can _tell._ They can see it in your optics and in the tightness in your fists: there's something _wrong_ with you. 

"He's obsessed with you," Rewind snaps when he isn't around, and you won't argue with him. "He's a self-centered megalomaniac and an unrepentant war profiteer. I have no idea what you see in him, Domey."

You think he probably never will.

"I've never seen you so _touchy_ with anyone before," Brainstorm comments, leaning far too close into your personal space, "You're not a _touchy_ person."

"I'm a touchy person," you argue, "You're just looking for reasons, now."

He's quiet.

"You're a real pushover, CD."

"Thanks."

"I hope you don't let him push you."

You don't know what he's talking about. You never do. He talks in riddles and he talks around you, like he knows something you don't. You don't bother answering. 

* * *

He looks tired. You know he's been stressed lately. You've been on Kimia for so long now. He put his hunt for _him_ on hold to come here, with you, because he loves you. He could go anywhere he wants, request any deployment, but this is where you're stationed. And he wouldn't leave you behind, not even for that.

You owe him everything. More than you'll ever have time to repay. 

"Hey," you murmur. He looks up from his desk where he's working, where he's been working all day. His visor is dim, energy run low. 

"What's up, Domey?" he asks. "Are you alright?"

"I'm alright." You sit up. "Come take a break. Come here."

He glances back at the monitor screen for a moment before he pushes himself to his pedes with a creak and comes to you, falls into your arms and lets you take him off his tired feet and hold him. You pull his head into your shoulder and nuzzle your face against his, placing a soft kiss to his forehead.

"You're tired," you whisper.

"I'm always tired," he replies. 

"I know." You kiss him and he melts into it, weak and somber and as desperate for relief as you are. You pull him closer, into your lap, and let a hand drift lower on his plating. 

He hesitates, hand on your chest. You pull away. "Are you sure?" he asks you. His visor lights with worry. You've been tired, too, too tired to lie when you lay as well as you used to. He can tell. 

"I'm sure," you assure him, because you are. "Let me take the edge off for you."

"You don't have to," he says, "You're tired, too."

"I want to." You do.

"Do you?" You _do._

He watches you, visor flickering. "Why?" 

You consider the question. You know he can tell sometimes, but you're usually good at convincing him he's seeing things. You're too tired to keep your secrets though, too tired to put his mind at ease like you need to. You don't want him to worry. It's your problem, not his, and he's not responsible for your choices or for your failings. 

"Because I love you," you answer. 

And that's true, at least.

* * *

Rewind hasn't touched you since he came back.

Or joined. It's hard for you to process. Your brain knows he isn't the same. You saw it and you know it, you know him being here neither fixed nor changed anything. The mech you loved still died. He is still dead. You will never see him again.

And even yet, and even still, the mech you love is here. He's laying on his side on the berth next to you and he's here and he's real and he's warm and he's alive. And he loves you. You think. 

"Rewind?" You touch his arm and he flinches. It hurts in your spark that even your touch can frighten him now, but that's your problem. That's your failing. It's not his problem.

He turns over onto his back and tilts his head to the side towards you, visor soft and dim and sad. There is an anguish in him you can't fix. That might never _be_ fixed. You see a broken in his optics that makes him look like you. 

The dark thing that lives in your gut and howls in your sleep, digs its gnashing jaws into you sparkchamber and _chews_ spits and snarls and it whispers into the corona of your spark: _You could fix it. You could save him. Let him roll back over. Let him go to sleep. You could take his pain and hold it for him, and he would never have to know._

You deserve the white-hot knife that's cutting through your fuel tank and tracing along the insides of your lines. It slices into your filters and cuts out spark shaped pieces that it crumples in the wind. It hurts, but not enough.

"Can I help you?" you ask him.

He looks down and away and shakes his head, then turns back on his side and away from you. 

"I don't know," he murmurs. 

"You don't know what?"

"I don't know," he repeats, "If anyone can ever help me again, Chromedome."

You wince at the name, and you think he notices somehow, but you don't say anything and he doesn't either. 

"If there's anything I can do," you tell him, "I'll do it."

"I know," he mumbles.

"Anything."

"I know, Chromedome."

* * *

He's crying.

It's paradoxical. It's nonsensical. You don't know what to do or say. You try, so hard, all the time, to figure out what it is he wants from you so you can give it to him but you can't figure it out. You don't know.

"I love you," he sobs, brokenly, a scratched record on repeat. His tiny hands clutch your face and his tear streaked visor is casting warmth across your own in the darkness of your habsuite.

"I know," you reassure him, "I've always known."

"You _don't,_ " he cries, trembling in your lap, "You don't _know._ Domey, I _love_ you."

"I _know!_ " you insist.

"Do you?" he begs, holding your face steady so you can't look away, "Do you _know_ though? How could you _ever_ think I'd want him _instead_ of you?"

"You love him," you say, because it's true, and because you know it. Your hands never shake but there's a tremble in your frame. 

"Of course I do!" he cries, “But he _left_ me, Domey! I had to find him, I had to know, I had to know I did my best because I promised him I would but I _picked_ you!”

“It’s okay,” you tell him, because he doesn’t have to do this, he doesn’t have to lie for your benefit the way you do for his because there’s nothing wrong with _him_ that needs covering for, “I understand-”

“No you don’t!” he falls forward, his forehead hitting your chest, hands curling into fists that quiver, “You don’t and you never have!”

“I’m sorry,” you say, more quietly. You are. You always are.

“I never want to go anywhere you can’t follow,” he sniffles, “I don’t ever want to sleep alone again.”

“You don’t have to.”

He pauses, quaking, face turned away from you, buried in your chest over your spark. The breaths he takes are laboured, fearful, body tense like it will break before it bends.

“Please stop making me hurt you,” he finally begs pathetically, his voice breaking across the words like your spark did when you fired a shot at a slow cell floating slowly through space once upon another life. “Please.”

Your head spins. “What?”

“I don’t know what it is,” he says, voice soft, arms tightening in on himself and he looks smaller even than usual, like he wants to vanish. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I don’t know what you won’t _tell_ me.” He shakes his head and sniffles. “It’s _something._ Domey, it’s _something_ and I _know_ it.”

He can tell. Ice crawls up your spinal strut and you can feel things falling apart just as you’d finally put them back together. It isn’t fair. You made your choice a long time ago and it was worth it. 

“It’s nothing,” you say, but he just shakes his head harder and snaps it up to look at you again.

“Stop lying to me!” he sobs, faceplate wrecked with tears, visor so bright that it threatens to blind you and you would gladly let it if only to end this before it gets any worse. “Domey, _please,_ I’m _begging_ you, what _is_ it? Sometimes you flinch when I touch you or you stand in the shower under the hot water for an _hour_ and you say it’s nothing, you pretend to be asleep when you’re _not,_ you won’t ever tell me no, you just say _yes yes yes_ and _I promise I want you to_ and I know you’re lying! Stop. You have to stop.”

His optics on you are too much but you can’t possibly look away. “I’m sorry.”

“What _is_ it, Domey?” he asks beneath his breath, “Am I doing something wrong?”

“No!” It’s your first quick answer, and it’s an easy one. “It’s not you. It- it’s me. It isn’t… it’s something I’m okay with. It’s something I can live with.”

“But _I_ can’t.” He wipes tears from his visor. You’ve made it worse. You’ve made him miserable. Your world is slipping through your fingers that never shake, and it’s your fault like it always is. You’ve never been enough and you were never going to be. All you could ever do was hold it in place between your pressed together palms and pray your hands never shook. 

“I don’t,” you say, and at first it’s all you can and you desperately hope he gets impatient and says something else so you can stop, but he doesn’t. “I don’t _like_ it.”

He stares at you for a moment, squinting. “What- what part? Is it- being on the bottom?”

You wince and look away. His optics follow yours, still confused. “Taking?”

You hunch your shoulders in a weak shrug.

“...Is it just… any of it?” he fields, and you can feel the cold reek of fear in his voice.

You glance back at him. His optics are wide and you can almost see the gears in his head turning as he processes it, internalizes it, reappraises things. Reappraises _you._ You can’t watch any longer. He’s better than you are. He won’t do this anymore if he knows, and he’ll love you, but he won’t _love_ you. You can’t watch yourself die in the reflection on his visor, because you’re sure it will kill you. You turn full away until you can’t see him anymore, tears prickling at the corners of your visor and a dark thing full of teeth and venom roiling in your gut.

“Oh, god, Domey,” he says, voice a sharp intake, quivering with the weight of it, “Never?”

“Never,” you repeat.

He lets out a horrified, shaky breath, and you wish the thing that’s in you would well up and eat you but it’s never had any pity for you and it won’t start now.

“I’m so _sorry_ , Domey,” he whispers, tugging on your shoulder. He wants you to turn toward him again and you don’t want to, “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“It’s not important,” you say weakly, “I told you, I’m okay with it. It’s something I can live with.”

“God, Domey, look at me, please.” You don’t know how to say no to him. You never have. “I don’t _want_ you to live with it, I _love_ you. Do I not say it enough? Do you really think I don’t?”

“I don’t think you don’t!”

“Then why would you think I _wanted_ to hurt you?!”

“You weren’t!”

“I _was!_ I could _tell_ and every time I tried to stop because I thought something was wrong and you didn’t want to be doing it you would _beg_ me not to!”

“Because I did want to!” you insist, “I wanted to, I did. I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to do what you wanted to do!”

“I don’t want you to force yourself to have sex when you hate it, Domey!” He’s earnest and horrified and angry and all of it at you, the great ruiner of things. “And I definitely don’t want you to think that’s what _I_ want you to do!”

“It’s _my_ problem!” you cry, grabbing his hands in your own, “It’s _my_ problem to deal with, not yours, and I don’t want to take this from you, I can be good and I can be normal and I can do all the things you want to do and it’s not a-”

“Chromedome!” he yells and shakes your hands away so he can grab your face again, “I don’t want to _rape_ you!”

You full stop.

“Domey, baby…” his voice finally softens when you fall silent. “That’s what that is. That’s what we’re talking about.”

“No,” you say, carefully, “It’s not like that. I didn’t say no. I never said no. You never made me do anything.”

“But you felt like you _had_ to.” His hands are soft on your face, soothing. “That’s not _right,_ Domey.”

“I know, but,” your voice is shaking and you hate it, “But I can’t _be_ right. I don’t know what else to do.”

“ _Stop,_ ” he insists. “We don’t have to do that. We _never_ had to.”

“But it’s worth it,” you try, pathetically, “I can’t lose you. I’d rather just do it.”

“You aren’t going to lose me!” He buries his head in your chest again like a defeated soldier too tired to go home, “I love you. I love you. I _love_ you. I don’t know why you don’t believe me.”

“I do,” you say weakly, “I just want to make you happy.”

“It would make me happy,” he mumbles, “If we never fucked again. If you never did something you don’t want to do with me again. If you would just be _honest_ with me. If you would stop doing things you think I want you to do and just _talk_ to me.”

“...We can stop,” you tell him, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to stop because I don’t want you,” he murmurs, “I want to stop because I want _you_ to be happy.”

“I’m happy with you.”

“I’m happy with _you._ We don’t have to have sex. I don’t need that from you. I don’t _want_ it if you aren’t enjoying it. This isn’t the problem you think it is.”

The dark thing in your gut goes still and quiet and thoughtful, burbling and gurgling as it waits and ponders. “It isn’t?”

“No!” he looks up at you again in earnest. “We don’t, Domey. Not ever. I love you.”

It feels like a trap, but he wouldn’t do that. There’s fear in you, but there always is.

“...Okay,” you say, hesitantly.

“Okay? Okay!” his visor flares. “I want you to tell me when something’s wrong. I want you to tell me when you aren’t happy. I want you to tell me when you don’t want to do something. I want- I _need_ you to be honest with me. I want you to be _happy._ I want to make _you_ happy.”

You’re not good at this. You never have been. You’re better around him, because you don’t know how to be and you don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but you know _he_ does. Ever since you started trusting him to keep you honest you’ve been better. You like yourself more, even if you don’t like yourself much. If he says it’s okay, it must be okay. 

“I’ll do my best,” you promise, and you mean it.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted from you,” he tells you. He starts to shift forward to kiss you before he hesitates, but you _like_ this part and you meet him halfway. He pulls back after a moment. “Are you _sure_ this is okay?”

“I like kissing,” you tell him, “I don’t want to stop that.”

“Are you being honest?” he asks, “Because it’s okay if you don’t. You won’t be in trouble. I won’t be upset.”

“I’m being honest,” you tell him, and you are.


End file.
